


The Yule Ball

by phoenix_writing



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Not Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Compliant, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-21
Updated: 2019-12-21
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:49:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21879157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phoenix_writing/pseuds/phoenix_writing
Summary: Ten years after the last Triwizard Tournament, they give it another try.  Harry is invited to the Yule Ball.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Comments: 1
Kudos: 56





	The Yule Ball

**Author's Note:**

> Set when Harry is 24, post Deathly Hallows but without the epilogue and without Cursed Child. Mostly gen with some slash potential at the end.

~*~

“Do I have to go?” Harry couldn’t help but whine.

Hermione shot him a considering look from across the booth in which they were seated. They weren’t that far from the Ministry, but they’d chosen a Muggle bar, and Hermione had caste Muffliato as a matter of course. They weren’t actually talking about anything particularly sensitive, but they weren’t taking any chances. Although the _Daily Prophet_ had eased up somewhat in the years following the Final Battle, they still thought that Harry had the potential to be big news.

Gently, Hermione said, “No, Harry, of course you don’t _have_ to go. But don’t you think that maybe you _should_?”

Harry wondered if it was an indication of adulthood that while Hermione clearly had an opinion, she was actually letting him make the decision for himself.

He stalled and took another sip of his Butterbeer. Never mind that Firewhisky would be a little more adult, he still preferred the taste of the Butterbeer.

Finally, he simply admitted, “I don’t want to.”

“Might the new memories not help cover over the old ones?” Hermione asked. She made a face. “Not to diminish anything that happened, but this is just a ball.”

Harry blew out another breath. _Was_ it crazy to be refusing to go because of something that had happened ten years ago? It wasn’t even really _those_ events that were the problem, not that the Yule Ball had been the best experience that he’d ever had. They had simply been nothing compared to everything that had followed. It was all mixed up in his head, everything to do with the Triwizard Tournament, and he supposed that if he were being really honest, then perhaps Hermione had a point.

“Who all is going?” he wanted to know.

“Prominent alumni have been invited in addition to the faculty and students,” Hermione told him. She hesitated for a moment and then admitted, “Viktor’s going. Fleur and Bill are as well.”

Harry grimaced. Wouldn’t there be a horrible gap if all of the old Triwizard Champions went except for the one who had been murdered? Or would it be even worse if Harry didn’t go? Harry couldn’t ever replace Cedric, but perhaps he could represent the Hogwarts champions. He’d emphatically declined to be on the committee of judges, entirely happy to have Hermione there instead, but this _was_ just a ball.

Harry took a gulp of his Butterbeer, wondering if maybe it wouldn’t be better after all to have something stronger.

“Okay,” he agreed, before he could think better of it. “I’ll go.”

Hermione smiled at him. “I really think it’s for the best, Harry.”

That night, he dreamt of green spell fire, cold stone, and the bite of a sharp knife.

He was definitely going to regret this.

~*~

Harry should clearly have thought this through more, which, in retrospect, was probably why he’d received the invitation late and Hermione had brought it up last minute. He wondered if Hermione and McGonagall had planned it together. Because if he’d had more time to think about it, he would have remembered that on top of all the other reasons that he didn’t want to do this, he didn’t much enjoy formal dancing. Perhaps fortunately, he’d spent all the time gearing himself up to go, so it hadn’t actually occurred to him that this was an event you would normally take a date to. He’d missed all that stress and simply shown up solo. It might have been embarrassing, except there were so many people who wanted to talk to him that he would probably have spent too much of his time ignoring his date—through no fault of his own instead of the poor behaviour that he could now admit had marked his first Yule Ball.

To handle the number of people, part of the lawn had once again been transformed into a grotto, and Harry was relieved that Rita Skeeter was not present. He had no idea if sensitive conversations were going to be discussed out there this year, but he’d rather not take the risk that anyone was going to be exposed as Hagrid had been. He grimaced. Everything about that year had been a disaster.

Inside, he found that the Great Hall had been transformed. Snow fell from the ceiling, though it disappeared before it could reach the guests, and frost-encrusted trees full of fairy lights decorated the perimeter. There were a lot of people.

Harry was relieved to find that the champions from Hogwarts, Beauxbatons, and Durmstrang were all actually of age, and there were only three of them. (In reality, Hermione would have mentioned if there had been any problems prior to this, but seeing the truth confirmed right in front of him was still a relief.) They seemed very young to Harry, but he supposed that was what happened as you got older. It had been ten years since Harry’s last Yule Ball, and Harry had been on the run from Voldemort when he was seventeen. These students had lived completely different lives, and Harry reminded himself that that was altogether a good thing.

The three of them regarded Harry, Fleur, and Viktor with a fair amount of awe—Harry especially, since he’d made it through the tournament at the age of fourteen.

“I had a lot of help,” Harry said with a smile that only felt a little forced. “You’ve probably already been told to work to your strengths, but don’t be afraid to ask for help, either. You’ve got a lot of people around you who can be assets to you.”

“It is a competition,” Viktor added, “but it is also the chance the make friends.”

Fleur nodded in agreement.

“If you are very lucky, you may even find the person you want to spend the rest of your life with. Do not get so lost in the tournament that you forget about all the other opportunities.” Fleur flashed her dazzling smile, and all the men in the vicinity smiled blindly back. “I may have lost the tournament, but I consider that I won far more than I lost.”

The champions still looked like they all wanted to win, but Harry supposed that was pretty normal. There was the cash prize, of course, and that eternal glory that Harry still remembered Dumbledore telling them would be theirs if they won. (Given half a chance, Harry would undo all of it, but he knew that his experience was atypical, even for a tournament as dangerous as this one had been in years past.)

Alexa was a Slytherin, and as much as the reputation of the house had begun to improve in the last decade, there was still plenty of work that could be done. Mikhela from Durmstrang and Sebastien from Beauxbatons were both trying to bring their schools to victory a decade after the two Hogwarts champions had had a joint win—as hollow as it had been. Hermione had assured him that security was tighter than it had been last time, and nothing like the cup-turned-Portkey could happen again. Harry certainly hoped not. Given everything that they had fought for, it was probably a good sign if these students were solely focussed on winning and not worrying about megalomaniac dark lords.

Once it was all over, maybe they’d remember the other benefits of the tournament. Hermione had told him that McGonagall had been working harder than ever to integrate the delegations from Durmstrang and Beauxbatons with the Hogwarts students. They seemed to be mingling all right at the ball, anyway—and they were all getting introduced to Harry. 

In fact, it felt like Harry was introduced to an endless stream of people, and he had really stretch his arsenal of smalltalk. He tried to keep everyone straight at first, but he soon realised that it was a lost cause. He smiled a lot and attempted to not be completely awkward, probably not with a great deal of success. It was a relief every time he got to speak to someone that he actually knew, generally former classmates who’d fought in the Final Battle, former professors, and the occasional actual friend.

“Would you like to dance, Harry? You look a little uncomfortable.”

Harry couldn’t help but grin at Luna, who clearly still had the habit of calling it like she saw it, even if she saw it differently than other people did.

In this particular instance, she was quite right, of course.

“I’m never quite sure what I’m supposed to do at events like these,” Harry admitted. “But dancing would certainly blend in.”

Harry wasn’t eager to make a fool of himself, but with the absence of the stress of being a Champion, of going to the ball with someone he didn’t particularly want to be going with, and of pining over someone else, he found that the dancing wasn’t actually as bad as he remembered. Even if people were watching him, they didn’t have quite the same laser focus as they had had before—or maybe he’d gotten more used to being perpetually in the spotlight.

He danced with most of the people he knew—and a bunch that he didn’t really know, including Mikhela and Alexa—and then he found himself staring awkwardly at Draco Malfoy as their respective partners paired together for the next dance.

The opening chords of the next song began, and Malfoy raised an eyebrow before he held out his hand.

“Potter?”

Was it just stunned amazement that made Harry lay his hand in the other man’s? Had he maybe noticed just how handsome Malfoy looked in his formal wear, even if Harry was trying not to think about it?

Whatever the reason, they were indisputably on the dance floor together now, and after an awkward moment where Harry didn’t know if he was leading or not, Malfoy simply took charge. Since he was a much better dancer than Harry was, this was just as well.

Unfortunately, Harry felt even more uncoordinated than normal; he could only imagine how it would look if he stepped on Malfoy’s feet in full view of everyone. He stumbled slightly and grimaced.

“Sorry,” he muttered.

“You’re fine when you’re not worried about tripping over your own two feet,” Malfoy told him.

Harry’s eyes snapped up to the other man’s.

“I’m not tripping!” he snapped.

They danced for several minutes in stilted silence, and Harry was going to mark this down as the worst dance ever, despite Malfoy’s skill, until he realised that the other man was grinning at him. Not sneering or even smirking, but actually _grinning_.

And that was the point at which Harry realised that his fuming had consumed his mind enough that he hadn’t been at all concerned about what his feet were doing—and as a result, they’d done just fine.

He rolled his eyes at Malfoy, whose smile only deepened.

“Weird being back?” Malfoy asked.

Harry huffed a breath. “So weird. You?”

Malfoy nodded, something a lot darker in his grey eyes for a moment. “It’ll never be the same. But there’s a lot of memories.”

Harry nodded. “I had a terrible time at the last ball, and it pales in comparison to how the Tournament ended, but this isn’t actually the same situation at all.”

A blond eyebrow rose once again. “Do I take that to mean that you’re enjoying yourself this time?”

Harry couldn’t help but smile. “You know what? I think I am.”

Dancing with Draco Malfoy was pretty much the last thing that Harry had ever expected to find himself doing, but that didn’t mean that it was bad.

The waltz came to an end, and Malfoy considered him for a moment before he asked, “Would you like some punch?”

And Harry didn’t let himself second-guess anything, just went with his gut. “That would be nice.”

Malfoy smiled again, and Harry found himself smiling back. Maybe this Tournament really was a chance to make connections, no matter how unexpected. Maybe they had both grown up in the last ten years. 

Maybe Hermione was right, as usual.

Whatever the reason, as Harry and Malfoy moved towards the punch table together, Harry reflected that he was looking forward to seeing where this led.

~*~

_Finite incantatem_


End file.
